According to the National Weather Service, some of the deadliest winter snows occur in the Miami Valley from something called a snow squall.
>> NWS enacts changes to winter weather alerts
Be extra alert for snow squalls making their way across Ohio today. These quick blasts of snow can quickly drop visibility and coat the road with snow. #ODOTwinter pic.twitter.com/XwwNMvGCMU
— Ohio Dept of Transportation (@ODOT_Statewide) January 30, 2019
A snow squall is an intense burst of heavy snow that can quickly lead to white-out conditions and slick roads. Squalls don’t typically produce large amounts of snow, but rather, intense snow showers that can quickly change driving conditions and produce injuries and even fatalities on Miami Valley roads.
To combat this problem, the National Weather Service and the Ohio Department of Transportation partnered up last winter to get impact language added to road signs to help better prepare drivers.
This winter, the step to protect life and property goes even further. The National Weather Service Wilmington, Ohio office will now issue Snow Squall Warnings. These warnings will be short usually lasting about 30-60 minutes in localized areas like a severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning does to get the life-saving location and impacts of these squalls to the public. These warnings will be drawn with polygons like a tornado warning is so that the information is sent directly to the population impacted.
>> Stay up-to-date with the WHIO Weather App
"You're driving on the roadway going 70 miles an hour, it's blue sky and then all the sudden everything changes, it's a mini blizzard, gusty winds may enhance the dangerous element as well so we can issue a snow squall warning for those types of conditions," said Brandon Peloquin, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service Wilmington office.
Your Storm Center 7 team works closely with the NWS and will also pass these life-saving warnings on to you as well as track the snow squalls that could develop this year on our OWN LOCAL Live Doppler 7 Radar.
